


the darkest hour comes right before the dawn

by silveryink



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Conversations, Family Fluff, Gen, Healing, Post - The Atlantis Complex, Pre - The Last Guardian, discussions of mental health, the Fowls and Butlers are all one big family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24441736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryink/pseuds/silveryink
Summary: There are good days and bad ones. Healing isn't linear, but Artemis has it covered.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 51





	the darkest hour comes right before the dawn

**Author's Note:**

> This story was in long in the making, it's been written and rewritten like thrice before I could commit myself to at least one scene, but I'm super proud of it. It's based on a series of headcanons I had about the Atlantis Complex and the time Artemis spent between books 7 and 8 during his recovery and partly inspired by [Sitting on the branches of my family tree](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18558052) by [mentosmorii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentosmorii/pseuds/mentosmorii) (go check it out!!! it's brilliant!!!).
> 
> This story mostly follows canon, but the time gap between the two books is about three years, owing to the fact that the Complex manifests in more than one stage and the fact that DID takes far longer than six months to treat (it's roughly 5-7 years of therapy in adults). More details to follow in the end notes because I really went into the details of what the Complex is. 
> 
> Title from Hadestown. Also, this is my first story in present tense, so it was fun to write in a technical sense as well.  
> Hope you all enjoy!

Artemis is awake in his bedroom, any inclination of sleep completely absent, and staring at the ceiling. It isn’t all that different from all those nights when his mind was too loud and working at a worrying speed – even for him. It isn’t because of the Complex, but he knows that what currently bothers him is _just_ beyond his reach. It hasn’t come to him yet, but he welcomes the distraction happily, if it means he won’t have to worry about those blasted numbers or the curtains being only half drawn (they aren’t).

The door opens and closes with a soft click, and he hears soft footsteps nearing him. He’d recognise that tread anywhere, and finds himself automatically relaxing when he pushes himself up to face the newcomer. “Hello, Mother.”

Angeline Fowl says nothing, simply pulling him into a hug. It is a testament to how used to physical affection he’s become since he returned from Hybras (mostly because of Myles and Beckett’s pereistence) and how rotten he feels that he simply curls into the embrace without protest. She must have returned right from the resort once she heard the news.

Angeline pulls away, and he sighs before pushing a pillow behind his back and leaning against it. While he doesn’t want to have this conversation at all, having it while mostly upright is far better than lying down.

“When I said I was going to save the world,” he says hesitantly, “I assure you, I didn’t mean it this way.”

Angeline closes her eyes and shakes her head with a huff. “I can tell.” It’s not unkind, but he recognises it as the reprimand that it is. “Your father’s downstairs, by the way. The twins are asleep, and he wants to know what happened.”

Artemis nods, unsurprised that the entire family returned home to check on him instead of carrying on with their initial plan of Artemis joining them at the resort to celebrate his birthday after the presentation.

And just like that, what had been bothering him for the past hour clicked together.

“I want to tell him.” It comes out in a rush. Angeline quirks an eyebrow at him.

“I want to tell him – Father – everything about the fairies. About my – about Holly, Commander Root, and-” he isn’t sure what else to add. She does get the point, thankfully. It’s rare for him to be this unsure of his own words. Normally, he’d be incredibly embarrassed by this lack of eloquence, but he hasn’t felt _normal_ for far longer than he remembers.

“Everything?”

He nods. His mother sighs again and pinches the bridge of her nose.

“I think you’re right,” she says. “I told him about some of it, and somehow he believed it all without question. He deserves to know the rest, but it can wait.”

The rest is unsaid. Artemis knows why, of course. The Project was supposed to go smoothly, with his presentation and subsequent demonstration setting off a string of events to help the current global climate. Travelling all the way to Atlantis because of a former LEP officer-turned-criminal was _not_ part of the plan, which Artemis had been intent on sticking to like a particularly stubborn leech.

There’s a knock on the door, and his father peeks in. “Artemis?”

Despite his nerves, he manages a small smile. It might have been unsurprising that his family would drop anything to help him if asked, but it’s equally reassuring that however hard this might be for him, none of what he does next needs to be faced alone or in secret.

“Hello, Father,” he greets, as Artemis Senior takes a seat on the bed on Artemis’ free side and squeezes his knee lightly.

“You had your mother quite worried for a bit,” he says seriously, and Artemis looks away guiltily. A warm hand grips his shoulder, and his father continues, “You had _me_ worried too. I hope you know you can come to us with anything you want to say.”

Artemis has grown used to most of the changes in his Father’s demeanour since his rescue, but this is one thing that unnerves him still. He _does_ appreciate the support, though it’s hard for him to respond in kind. The twins have helped immensely, something Artemis couldn’t have expected at all but doesn’t mind in the least.

Artemis wonders what exactly Butler told his mother over the phone. He dips his head in acknowledgement and clears his throat nervously. He isn’t sure when it began, exactly, but he does know enough about the Complex to be able to pin it down to a rough date. His parents listen patiently as Artemis briefs them through the details of the signs and symptoms and what exactly he’d been experiencing all this while. It’s important that they understand exactly what the Complex means for him before he gets to the day’s events.

By the time he reaches the point of the Mars probe attacking their group and the first time Orion came to the forefront of his awareness, his mother has a strange look on her face. He pauses in his account to ask her what she’s thinking.

“I don’t think your symptoms are _just_ because of the Atlantis Complex,” she says.

He frowns. “I _am_ rather particular about-”

“No, Arty, I mean the hallucinations.” Artemis still doesn’t get what she means (a leftover effect of the sedative, likely), but apparently his father knows.

When she explains that her mother’s side of the family all passed on the genetic component that might have performed a role in the manifestation of the Complex, Artemis puts it together. He’s never really told her about what happened in the two years Father was missing, but what she says makes an awful amount of sense.

He’s silent for a long time, but not in the contemplative manner he’s known for sinking into. It’s a maelstrom of memories that rise unbidden; of his mother’s declining mental health all those years ago. The delusions had been the worst, the ones where she didn’t recognise him at all and feared everything outside the silence and darkness of her bedroom. He roughly pushed aside those memories, careful not to meet his parents’ eyes. He knew his mind and the pattern of her paranoia well enough to estimate that such a scenario would be highly unlikely in his case.

“You might be right,” he admits, and he thinks for a second that they might not hear before his father shifts until he’s close enough beside him to wrap an arm around his shoulders, and his mother takes his hand in hers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she says. “I should have, especially after…” she trails off.

“It’s fine,” he starts, but she shakes her head.

“It wasn’t,” she says firmly. “I had no reason to believe it might have skipped a generation, and you deserved to know.”

Artemis doesn’t know how to respond. Something must show on his face, because his mother joins him at his other side too. Artemis relaxes into his parents’ holds without really thinking about it, but a small part of his brain points out that this could have been his childhood. He pushes this thought away too – it serves nothing to think about _what if_ s when he has a solid theory about the Complex right in his hands.

It’s more than a theory, he realises; after all, magic was simultaneously a biological and mental component. He remembers a line from one of the files he’d read about magic on LEP servers, that the magical receptors were located in one’s synapses. Surely the awakening of those receptors in _his_ brain would have affected his physiology as much as a hormonal imbalance or any other genetic component. Put those two together, along with his mounting obsession with the Project and guilt over his past misadventures, and he’s got the perfect minefield of a brain for the Complex to manifest.

He files away this information for later, though, to bring up with Dr. Argon. Right now, all he needs to do is _talk_.

* * *

Stage Two of the complex is _strange_ , and not because of the comorbidity of _Dissociative Identity Disorder_ in addition to the messiness of whatever Stage One is supposed to be. Argon and the others never really clarified it, and all his searches have come up with a definition so vague it can’t even be _called_ that.

It’s Orion who baffles him, because his alter’s motives and actions are dizzying to comprehend. No, he doubts he’ll ever understand how his subconscious constructed _Orion_ ’s personality, but he decides, for the sake of his dignity, that Stage Two has to be the first to go.

He thinks he’d prefer the delusions to watching Orion’s embarrassing antics, at least till the day he actively contemplates shocking himself into Stage Two. (It’s a bad day, that day.)

He knows that bad days are inevitable, but nothing prepares him for the distressing nightmare fuel his mind supplies that leaves him slumped against a wall, exhausted, with no regard for posture or presentation (or anything else he would normally be worried about). He immediately tells Butler, of course, who makes the world-changing suggestion to seek out another therapist – a _human_ one who would be less focused on the magic part, unlike Argon. Artemis hardly needs a moment to consider this option before he agrees. He’s willing to try anything that will help, at this point.

Argon’s fixation on the already existing methods of treatment is driving Artemis spare, because they’re clearly meant to work on fairies – something his doctor ignores whenever Artemis brings it up. If he has to describe what he sees in another ink-blot, he might just throw the entire deck at his LEP-assigned psychologist.

To be fair, the fairy’s treatments _do_ help somewhat, but they’re best suited for the patients whose physiology was taken into account while developing them.

Artemis goes ahead and books himself an appointment with a human therapist for that Friday, and things start to look slightly better. He doesn’t tell her about the fairies, lest she assumes it to be a part of the hallucinations, but she takes note of his genetic predisposition into account. She knows that he’s seeing a specialist too, and takes that into consideration as well. Really, things couldn’t be better.

Progress takes time, Artemis knows that. It’s simply hard for him to look forward when the bad days outnumber the good.

* * *

It’s a good day, and Artemis is glad. He’s been having more good days than bad ones lately, something he mentioned to Maya during his last appointment with her. She had been pleased, told him that it was a sign of progress, to which he’d replied, miffed, that he knew very well what it meant, he was just saying so out loud.

After numerous treatments and prescriptions offered by the Psych Brotherhood with varying degrees of success, Argon suggests that Number One could try shutting down the recently awakened centres of his brain to limit the magical interference, and the young demon was more than happy to oblige. The process leaves him with a headache for a week, but that’s the final piece needed to be free of Stage Two. While it hadn’t been much of an issue for the last month or two, he doesn’t have to worry about waking Orion by accidentally shocking himself in the middle of a project.

Argon takes a step back once he deems Artemis healthy enough to stagger the lapses between appointments, something which infuriates his family but can’t be avoided due to the LEP’s rapidly thinning patience. Artemis, in the end, is the one to suggest that he could simply return for a periodic assessment while shifting the majority of his therapy to Maya’s office. Argon accepts, confident that none of their progress will be undone, and Artemis settles into this new rhythm with newfound optimism.

He’s glad that his parents decided to forego their annual vacation this summer in favour of staying at the manor and enjoying some quiet time together as a family. It becomes much better when Juliet joins them too, and when he manages to wrangle Butler into relaxing (or whatever is close enough, for his ever-vigilant bodyguard) with the rest of them one afternoon in the backyard. There’s a tablecloth (mercifully not one of the fancier painted ones, those are _heirlooms_ ) laid out on the ground since they don’t have a picnic blanket lying around, and the Fowls and Butlers are simply _there_ , doing whatever activity pleases them at the time but enjoying the others’ presences.

The Artemis of two years ago would never have thought of this unfamiliar image around him as part of _his_ life, and never have expected that this near-inactivity would make him feel content.

To be fair, it isn’t exactly inactivity. He _was_ lying with his brothers in a patch of sunlight, pointing out the shapes they see in passing clouds. His mother is reading, book angled so that his father can read it over her shoulder; Butler and Juliet are bickering softly about something related to wrestling techniques. He hears Samsonetta’s names a few times, but drops his attempts to pick up anything they’re saying.

When Beckett suggests that the small tuft of a cloud before them resembles Jayjay, Artemis thinks it’s time for him to retreat. The twins don’t protest as he ducks back under the shade of the tree and pulls out a sketchbook. He flips past all the plans for a new greenhouse over to a blank page and reaches for the stick of charcoal beside him. Messy as it is, the charcoal is perfect for what he has in mind. It’s been a while since he’s drawn something that isn’t an architectural plan or design, but Artemis slips into the actions with ease. When he’s done, his fingers are stained black but he feels a pride at this creation that he hasn’t felt in ages.

It’s a perfect rendering of this afternoon – Artemis might have been out of practice, but he’s well aware of his skill (he even got his own posture under the tree right, without a visual reference). He doesn’t need the picture to remember the day, but doesn’t protest at all when it becomes a part of the mantle.

It’s a good day, and there are more of those to come.

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest prompts for this story are the differences between Artemis in The Last Guardian and before The Atlantis Complex. His character growth kind of happened offscreen, and I wanted to take a peek at what led to those changes. The other is what exactly the Complex is, because the book doesn't really take the time to specify past a single definition.
> 
> The way magic is described feels like it's both the manipulation of energy and based on a biological component. In The Lost Colony, Artemis realises that magic is 'in the mind', and Holly mentions several times in the series that the synapses are heavily involved. I took those parts and extrapolated. The definition of the Complex itself implies both psychological and 'magical' factors, aka (in my interpretation) biological causes.
> 
> Which leads me to Angeline Fowl. I was reading the books again recently and caught a parallel between Angeline's delusions in the first book and Artemis' hallucinations in TAC. Canonically, Angeline had terrible depression and hallucinated to the point where she couldn't recognise her son (which, ouch). Then I reached the scene where Artemis tried to confront the space probe thinking it was fake and thought, _huh, let's go with that_. And so it became a genetic trend in her side, passed on to Artemis.
> 
> I wasn't too impressed by Argon in TLG. From the way the book started (and the time he had to take care of a comatose Opal) he seemed to be more obsessed with the fame it would bring him over the actual treatment, or, you know, what's actually important when one becomes a psychiatrist. I didn't want to be too harsh considering Artemis did attend therapy sessions with him, so I came up with the 'LEP worried about security' excuse.
> 
> As for why I changed the timeline, like I said, despite the excuse in the book that Artemis' superior intellect helped him recover much faster than others, I highly doubt that something as serious as DID, grouped with whatever else Stage 1 had to offer (OCD, paranoia, delusions etc.) would take less than two years. That was before I did the research and found out that DID takes at least 5 years to treat in adults. I handwaved it a bit in the end and cut it to three years because apparently magic is a thing in these books and No1 did canonically do something along the lines of what I described.
> 
> I do understand why Colfer might have shifted Artemis' recovery offscreen - Dissociative Identity Disorder is a particularly tricky subject to understand and get right in media portrayal. Anxiety, depression, even PTSD are more common, and with more data comes more observable trends, and greater understanding of the topic. I skirted around the topic a bit myself because it requires a ton of research to get right and even more to avoid stereotyping. I did some more research on Stage 1, aka Artemis' paranoia and hallucinations, though, and worked with those. I thought that the OCD would have manifested from Artemis' already particular nature, and while my initially drafted scenes didn't make it to the final cut, I felt a lot more comfortable writing about Stage 1 and Arty's reaction to Stage 2. 
> 
> It's never said whether Artemis Sr. knows about the fairies, but I think if Artemis can be resurrected (ish) a year after dying then his father needs to know about fairies prior to the resurrection in order to not freak out about it. Also, this story isn't necessarily canon-compliant, so if you'd like to overlook the ending of TLG then that's completely valid because of No1 shutting down the parts of Artemis' brain that conduct magic. That was kind of why I included that detail in the end, actually.
> 
> Healing isn't linear, and I wanted to capture that in this story. With any mental illness, there will be good days and bad days, and at times the bad days outnumber the good. Eventually, though, things get better a little at a time. I hadn't planned on posting this in the middle of the pandemic, but this message is more relevant than ever. 
> 
> Stay safe, wash your hands, and have a great day!


End file.
